in
partnership with 
in
partnership with
Adobe Products
Used: Acrobat, PageMaker, Illustrator and PhotoShop.
- First Union approached Adobe Certified Training Provider (ACTP) Sterling Ledet & Associates seeking a better "big picture solution" to help manage the hectic revision cycles of their "Schedule of Fees" information. The solution required support for both printed and online formats, including distribution to all of First Union's corporate and individual customers across the country.
- The information is compiled by the Forms Division at First Union's corporate headquarters in Charlotte, NC where over 8,000 employees work in the Customer Infomation Center. You can drop off your kids, dry cleaning and car for an oil change, all within the square mile facility.
- Prior to our solution, First Union had to manage multiple versions of each document for each branch. Now they can easily copy & paste from a single master PageMaker document into special templates for commercial printing as well as online for branches and customers. What used to take weeks can now be done in days.
- Using Adobe Acrobat, PageMaker, Illustrator and PhotoShop, the "AcrobatGuys.com" division of Sterling Ledet & Associates developed procedures to convert the information electronically from their old system into the new system via PDF, which we then converted to PageMaker, while preserving formatting and assigning styles for automation.
- First Union selected PageMaker because it's so easy to learn and use. They especially enjoy the quick one-button access to creating PDF files from PageMaker which yields dividends when they need to cross-publish information online and in print. Eventually we hope to help them migrate to InDesign but for now PageMaker is perfectly suited to their tasks.
- We developed a clever solution that uses a little known feature of PageMaker. When you copy and paste from one PageMaker document to another, styles with the same name can use different formatting.
- This was the key to our success since it allows First Union to copy/paste from a Master to a Template and all appropriate formatting is automatically inherited. In the case of the commercially printed version, all headings, sub headings and body text are magically re-formatted to fit on either a 4-panel (for commercial accounts) or a 5-panel (for personal accounts) accordian fold booklet.
- We prepared and delivered a custom on-site training class, complete with custom courseware and visuals for 8 employees in a 12-seat classroom at First Union's corporate headquarters in Charlotte, NC. We used their "real world" files and ensured that everything worked as planned.
- We built a special website for First Union to handle revisions and on-going tech support.
- First Union employees attend our regularly scheduled Adobe Certified training classes at our Atlanta facilities, where we now have three 8-seat classrooms. We also have classrooms in Chicago and New Orleans.
- Below are some photos of the onsite training class along with a sample PDF of the work we did.
- The end result is that First Union can now accomplish in days what used to take weeks of painstaking work.
Each student was given a marked-up proof of a real job to make the required changes during class. Everyone successfully completed all of the lessons and exercises.
We prepared a 3-panel posterboard detailing various aspects of the project. Each student received a personalized courseware booklet and a certificate of completion.
Kerry Clancy (center, holding paper) our main contact at First Union, gave us 100s on our evaluations.
More photos of Sterling Ledet & Associates in action.
CONTACTS
Sterling Ledet & Associates
Project coordination and customer services
Sterling Ledet - 770-414-5007
Production and onsite training: Bill Carberry "AcrobatGuy" - 678-937-0842
First Union
Kerry Clancy - 704-590-9515